


children of dust and ashes

by buckyjerkbarnes



Series: thanos shoulda took me instead (iw fics) [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, BECAUSE THE ENDING OF THE MOVIE WAS AMBIGUOUS, DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN INFINITY WAR, Drabble, Infinity War, Kisses, Loss, M/M, MOTHER OF GOD SPOILERS, Reunions, SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS, ambiguous ending, look mom i wrote a Sad, marvel gonna catch these hands, most of the tagged characters just make cameo appearances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-28 20:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14456892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckyjerkbarnes/pseuds/buckyjerkbarnes
Summary: Nothing could have prepared Steve for a pain like this.[Or: The scene at the end of Infinity War that we're all going to be screaming about until Avengers 4 from Steve's view.]





	children of dust and ashes

**Author's Note:**

> So. Infinity War happened.

Steve has lived this moment a million times. It's a part of the serum— pristine memory, no matter how much he wished he might forget. But wouldn't that be so much worse? Because if he forgot, he'd forget the man who dominated so many of his memories, even if he wasn't physically present, even if it was Bucky's ghost shadowing Steve throughout the day. 

The closest to it happening first was with Peggy's message on that dreary day in forty-three. The one-oh-seven had been captured. A one man suicide mission into a weapon's facility miles and miles behind enemy lines. Nearly missing what he'd come for, who he'd come for, if it hadn't been for his enhanced hearing: if it hadn't been for Bucky's delirious mumblings of his name and serial number. But Bucky had been whole, scraped and bruised with dried blood about his ears and temples, but there was color in his face and his eyes were fever-bright and so god damn blue Steve could have swam in them and they were as alright as they could be. 

Then there was the train. 

(His arms had ached so bad— the defeat of reaching far, so, so far, but still it not being enough combined with the sharp jostling as the train cut a scar through the Alps made his fingers twitch with the urge to fall away, too.) 

It had seemed so finite in the moment. The Commandos had been sure there could be no body and if there was one, it would have been lost to the ice and rock at the base of the ravine. 

Time had proven them wrong. 

When the muzzle obscuring the lower half of the Winter Soldier's face fell away, revealing the features of the one person Steve knew better than anyone else, he'd felt like he might vomit, right then and there. There was no recognition in Bucky's face. There was no light behind his eyes. Steve had failed him. He hadn't  _saved_ him. It had been bad enough, the guilt of not searching for Bucky's body, for not doing more, but any of that grief he'd felt in the two and a half years between the train and the freeway fight seemed to explode behind his ribs. It was worse than the bullets the Winter Soldier loaded into him. It was losing his mother and nearly biting through his tongue to keep the pain at bay all over again; it was waking up in a new age with all his friends dead or dying again; it was wandering listlessly, stuck in a haze and operating with no one behind the wheel for two years and so much more all at once. 

And then the Accords and Zemo. Finding Bucky, more level-headed than he'd been on the helicarriers with his journals of memories, a photo of Steve stuck between the pages. The Avengers, his friends, sacrificing the lives they'd made in his name, for the cause he would not waver in. The loss of Bucky's limb once more. Tony, goading and pressing, suggesting the shield had more value to Steve than Bucky. Wakanda. The jailbreak. Shuri's tinny phone call an ocean away saying she had the technology to wipe the words from Bucky's mind, once and for all. 

Quieter, six months after Siberia—

A little hut on the outskirts of the village. A watering hole bracketed by trees with a view of Waknda's distant, glittering city. He'd sprinted several miles, all the way from the royal palace to the edges of the city, only stopping when he saw a familiar back crouched, barefoot, in the sand just beside the water. His breath had punched right out of him, at the sight of Bucky's face haloed by the sun, and the sound was loud enough to have Bucky tipping Steve's way. 

A smile, pearly and even and the most beautiful fucking thing Steve had ever seen lifted the corners of Bucky's mouth. It was a greeting. It was forgiveness. It was everything, including the very thing Steve needed to surge forward, clearing the distance between them in a handful of strides. He hauled Bucky into his arms, gripping tightly at the material that adorned Bucky's body. Bucky's hand lifted and slipped into the hair at the back of Steve's neck, holding him close as though there was anywhere Steve would rather be. There wasn't. There never was. 

They remained wrapped up in one another long enough that the sun shifted its position in the sky. 

"Buck...," Steve whispered, hands moving to frame Bucky's face. His hair was longer, silkier, and his beard was thicker, too. He'd been eating well, something that Steve hadn't thought to worry about and was glad to have found he needn't do so. "You... It's..." 

Bucky's smile softened to a soft curve. It warmed Steve's heart all the same. "Hey, Steve." 

He blinked hard, his throat suddenly tight as his eyes swam with tears. "Heya, Buck." 

There were no shadows in Bucky's gaze, now. No chains weighing him down, no chances of Hydra ever sinking their claws into him again. 

Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the sheer flood of relief that slammed into Steve like the most potent of drugs, but for whatever the reason, he surged close and pressed their mouths together. Bucky made a quiet, startled noise at first contact, prompting Steve to pull back after nothing more than a quick smash of lips. He hadn't even moved out of Bucky's personal space before the hand in Steve's hair tightened and tugged him in again, Bucky's eyes fluttering shut, his pulse strong and steady under Steve's palms. 

He was everything to Steve. He always has been. There would never be a time when he wouldn't be.  

Steve couldn't count on one hand, on both hands and feet, how many times he traveled alone to Wakanda to spend hours just sitting with Bucky, how they curled up on the narrow bed in Bucky's hut and, once, when Shuri came to visit and she found them cramped on the small mattress and how the next time, there was a bed with plenty of room for them both in place. 

There'd been the day, with almost a year of learning each other in the most intimate ways under their belts, that Bucky splashed him with a handful of water, delighting in Steve's surprised yelp. "Oh you jerk!" 

"That's what you get, punk!" 

They'd stilled along the shore, heat rising and boiling between them as they tipped into one another, even though Bucky was soaking wet up to his knees and only served to dampen Steve's clothes, too. It had been a mighty task, stumbling into the hut, nudging the curtain closed instead of just having one another right there in the open air. Bucky wouldn't have wanted to risk indecent exposure before any of the local children who liked to touch his hair and hang off his back and watch him skip rocks. Every touch was a balm, every kiss and shared breath helping to remove the weight that had pressed into Steve's heart for as long as he could recall. 

All of the previous losses with the years of healing standing as solid bookends, did nothing to prepared him for _this_. 

Thanos had backed out of sight, vanishing with a stony look through a blue-rimmed portal. Steve's tongue darted out briefly to touch at the side of his split lip, a pulsing bruise panging in his sternum from where the titan had punched him right in the solar plexus. It was the first time he'd breathed since Bruce told them such a wide-scale assault on Earth was imminent. 

He barely got to exhale when he heard a voice, soft and confused, from his right. "Steve...?" 

Bucky was fading away at the finger tips, brow furrowed, and gun lifted. He made to reach out for Steve, but before he could lift his hand, he staggered in step, collapsing away into a pile of dust. 

Steve's blood ran cold. His heart quite literally stumbled in his chest, unable to comprehend what he just saw.  

He could not speak, could barely blink out of fear that, if he did, he would not wake from whatever nightmare he'd been thrust into. The ash settled heavily on the grass and he stared at the abandoned gun, at the flecks of ash clinging to the long barrel. His knees gave out as he moved forward, as if observing from beyond his own body, as if there was some invisible puppet master pulling his strings. No. No. Not again. This was not the train— Steve had seen all of it, this time: there was no blizzard and high speed winds to obscure his vision. The world was entirely too still, like the universe itself took a mighty, soul crushing pause to try and brace itself against such a monumental loss. He gave a little shake of his head, more a flinch of denial. He touched at the ashes, rubbed a few between his fingertips and felt his tongue try to dive down his throat when his fingers came away smudged gray. 

Distantly, he heard Rhodes call out for Sam and Steve closed his eyes hard. He staggered to his feet, wavering beside the place that Bucky had been. He was drawn forth only by a sick sort of morbid curiosity to see who else was left. Who else had faded away? 

Bruce was still in the Hulk Buster suit and Nat, dirty and pale, was still there. He could not miss the way she looked on Bruce was a raw sort of relief, never quite moving her eyes away out of fear he might vanish, too. Rhodes joined them, Thor and the talking raccoon he'd arrived with joining them in the clearing. Vision lay colorless and still among the grass and leaves and it was almost too easy for Steve's legs to fail him once more as he knelt at Vision's side, hand on his cool shoulder to turn him on his back.

The stone had been clawed right out of Vision's forehead, leaving a gaping wound of circuitry behind. Thanos had all the stones. Every single one of them.

This was his way of balancing the universe— fulfilling his wish to wipe out half the population. 

"Oh, god," Steve choked.  _Why couldn't it have been me? Why does the universe seem to think it a necessity to take Bucky? Why can it never be_ me _?_

The love of his life, his one constant, the person he lived for and the one he'd die for, was gone. 

And Nat's voice, hoarse as it was, broke through his stupor. He could feel very little below the neck, but her hand on his shoulder broke through the haze of pain. 

"We'll get him back," she said. He had never heard her so emotionless. "All of them." 

"How?" Bruce whispered, just as quiet. He hadn't blinked once, unable to lift his eyes from Vision's colorless body, from the place where Wanda had been. Okoye joined them without T'Challa at her flank. Even the raccoon was lacking in his tree companion. 

Thor stepped forth. His jaw was clenched so hard, Steve vaguely worried he might shatter his teeth. "We must," Thor said. It was not answer. It was not nearly enough and could barely fall into the category of pacification, but Steve nodded anyway, an erratic bop of his head.

Steve lowered his face, mouth thinning to keep the sob building behind his teeth from breaking out of him. 

He'd lost Bucky far too many times. Steve'd failed him more than he could count. 

No matter how slim their chances seemed to be, Steve would move heaven and hell to make sure Bucky was restored. That all of them were. 

The world around them recovered from its stumble and kept spinning.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @ fypoedameron and on Twitter @ buckyjerkbarnes
> 
> Okay someone pointed out that Steve knew how to get into Wakanda and that Sam didn't so i'mma go ahead and assume that Steve has been to visit Bucky on more than one occasion and no one can tell me otherwise. If this was the first time that Steve saw Bucky after he'd been cured of the trigger words, there would have been a MUCH larger reunion— it sucks we didn't get more, but, that's what fan fic is for. Literally the last ten minutes of the movie I was shaking and I actually felt physically ill because I knew it was only going to go downhill fast as hell and yeah, yeah no I don't think anyone in the theater was breathing until the screen went black. Did I yell when we got hit with that dir. by Joe & Anthony Russo screen? Yep. Yep, I SURE DID. If you want to talk more about the movie, share your thoughts in the comments!!!


End file.
